


Crashing

by chaserzachsmith



Category: Insignia Series - S. J. Kincaid
Genre: Friendship, Gen, gapfic, no explicit violence but canon typical violence is mentioned, spoilers for Catalyst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 18:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13576425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaserzachsmith/pseuds/chaserzachsmith
Summary: When Tom disappears, Vik and his friends struggle to understand.





	Crashing

Lieutenant Blackburn corners Vik as soon as he steps into the Spire, waves him over brusquely and looks at his watch. It’s the first sign that something is very very wrong.

“Have you heard from Raines since the vacation started?” says Blackburn.

Vik racks his brain. “Uh, I emailed him,” he says. He almost says what he’d emailed about but Blackburn is his superior officer and the email had mostly been a boast about how even Vik’s limited sexual prowess was more impressive than Tom’s.

“Did he respond?” Blackburn asks, his gaze seeming to stab Vik in the throat.

No,” says Vik. “I figured he didn’t get Internet--”

Blackburn swears under his breath. It’s the second sign that something is very very wrong.

* * *

“Did Blackburn ask the two of you as well?” says Yuri, when they meet in Wyatt’s bunk. Wyatt, her lips pursed worriedly, nods.

“Tom’s been late from vacation before,” says Vik. “Remember? It’s probably like that again. We probably don’t have to worry.”

He is worrying anyway. He has been worrying all day. He had worried fleetingly about the email and now he is on the verge of panic.

“He was late the last time because he was a suspected terrorist,” Wyatt points out. “I think we should worry. It’s _Tom_.”

Vik folds his arms and leans against the wall, glances down at Wyatt’s sleeping roommate. “Tom’s just being Tom. That’s what he does. He disappears. He’s always disappearing places.”

"Tom disappearing never ends well,” Wyatt points out. “Just because it’s Tom being Tom doesn’t mean it’s not a _problem_.”

“Tom’s a problem,” agrees Vik.

Yuri speaks up from behind Wyatt. “But Thomas is our problem.”

Vik is overcome with fondness for Yuri. “Yeah, he is,” he agrees.

* * *

Blackburn gives them all demerits for no reason, so he can have an excuse to keep them in his office for an hour. They report to the Officers’ floor and he regards them calmly, his hand rubbing his mouth in contemplation.

“I don’t know where he is, but I do know what happened,” he says. “He’s being held prisoner by Joseph Vengerov.”

There’s a moment and then Vik blurts out, “That’s illegal.”

Blackburn regards him with something like pity and doesn’t respond. Vik gets the point-- it was a stupid thing to say in the first place. There’s probably nothing illegal for Joseph Vengerov.

“Can’t we just-- don’t you have proof?” says Vik. “The Coalition won’t--”

“The Coalition thinks that Joseph Vengerov just saved the world,” says Blackburn. “We would never be able to argue against him convincingly enough to change their minds.”

They sit in silence for a moment.

“Why would he take Tom?” says Wyatt. “He’s a terrible programmer.”

“I know he’s told you about his ability with machines,” says Blackburn. “That’s why.”

There’s another moment of silence.

“How long have you been checking his vision feed?” says Wyatt.

“I’ve got it playing in the back of my mind,” says Blackburn darkly. “Not a peek.”

“You got through to him though,” says Vik.

“I was keeping a close eye on him,” admits Blackburn. He pauses, as though only just remembering something. “He told me to tell you not to worry about him.”

Tom is such an idiot sometimes, really. Telling them not to worry as though there’s a universe in which they won’t.

* * *

“Hey Ashwan,” says Clint.

“Shove off,” says Vik. Lately he’s not even in the mood to make fun of Clint Stapleton. It was only fun with Tom. Wyatt’s nowhere near as funny and Yuri’s nowhere near as mean.

“What happened to Raines?” says Clint. “He go AWOL?”

Vik clenches one of his fists and fights the urge to snap. “He’s MIA, man.” It’s a subtle difference but a noteworthy one.

Clint snorts. “Course it’s Raines who follows after Ramirez.” Somehow that’s a fitting jibe, given what Vik now knows about how Tom had blown up the skyboards. He flips Clint off, not really caring enough to come up with something mean to say.

In response Clint says something nasty about both Tom and Elliot and Vik tackles him, shoves him into the wall, hits him hard on the side of the head.

He wins the fight, of course. You don’t get to be best friends with Tom Raines without learning how to win a fight. At least a fight against someone who got into less fights than Tom Raines himself. When Blackburn pulls them apart he gives Vik a look that says he knows what it’d been about, and Vik gets off with only five penalty hours.

* * *

It has been a month. Vik stumps heavily into his room and kicks off his shoes, sits down on his bed. He regards the shoe for a moment, and a wave of emotion seems to rear its head like a tsunami of frustrated, hideous guilt. He grabs up his right shoe and hurls it at the wall.

This is something that Tom does, this explosion of temper, but Vik isn't that person. Vik has grown up learning to control himself. Vik has never lost it the same way Tom does when he's bothered. Vik has never been the way that Tom is.

Vik is not a  _problem_.

He throws his other shoe at the wall sourly, but not as hard.

* * *

They are eating dinner together uncomfortably, Wyatt hunched over a notepad covered in handwritten code and Yuri watching her worriedly. Vik chews his food and frowns at his plate.

“What even is that,” says Vik. “It looks like Elvish.”

“It’s not Elvish,” says Wyatt to her notepad. “It’s coding for surveillance footage recording in Antarctica.”

“How do we even know he’s in Antarctica?” says Vik. “For all we know he’s in the basement. Or in South America. Or Detroit. It’s an enormous planet.”

Wyatt holds her pencil like she wants to squeeze it to death. “He might be there,” she says. “It’s not like you’re looking around the basement or South America or Detroit, anyway.”

Vik feels more useless than ever. He takes a bite of pot pie. “Blackburn doesn’t think he’s in Antarctica,” he says.

“Blackburn said he wouldn’t rule it out,” says Wyatt.

“But he said he didn’t--” Vik starts, and Yuri interrupts.

“If Tom is in Antarctica, then it is wise to hack the surveillance,” he says. “And if he is not, then it will not be a mistake to check.”

Vik scowls and takes another bite of pot pie.

* * *

“What other _possible_ reason could he have disappeared?” Lyla says. She’s been pissy with him for two months already, since he’s in a semi-permanent bad mood and rarely bothers to sit with her or talk to her. “His GPS vanished _exactly_ the way Heather’s did.”

“I know my best friend,” says Vik testily. “Tom’s not a deserter.”

“Let’s face it, Vik, he’s not exactly a model soldier either.” Lyla scrapes her hair into a ponytail and scowls at him.

“We aren’t soldiers,” says Vik. “We’re civilians.”

“Grow up,” says Lyla. “You can’t honestly convince me that Tom Raines was happy to be here. He’s basically an anarchist.”

Vik tries to decide if he would label Tom as an anarchist. It seems a bit extreme but he can’t deny that Tom is a politically extreme person.

“He wouldn’t just ditch the Spire,” he insists. “He’s missing and you’re acting like it’s not a big deal. At least _pretend_ to be concerned.”

Lyla rolls her eyes. Vik folds his arms to show her he means it.

"Fine, I hope Raines is okay,” she says. “Happy?”

Vik imagines his stomach like a boiling pot, the lid about to pop. “No,” he bites.

* * *

He is in a sour mood. He is always in a sour mood. There is nothing to lighten his moods anymore-- Wyatt’s her usual neurotic and clueless self and Yuri just accidentally makes him feel guilty and he’s dumped Lyla and Tom isn’t here.

“I am miserable,” he says.

“Maybe you should see the social worker,” suggests Wyatt.

He snorts. She frowns at him. “I’m serious,” she says. “She’s very nice.”

“I’m not that miserable,” he says.

“Are you sure?” says Yuri. “You are listless and unmotivated. Those are symptoms of depression.”

“Of course I’m sure,” says Vik.

* * *

Blackburn looks more and more sleep deprived every day, and Wyatt trails after him like a similarly exhausted shadow. Yuri and Vik spend their free hours in the Plebes’ common room watching the news, which is about as depressing as every other thing. The Ghost in the Machine-- not Tom, the murder one-- is still at large.

“I can’t believe it’s been three months,” says Wyatt at dinner. “Three months. That’s a whole quarter of a year.”

“Just think,” says Vik. “In another thirty days, it’ll be a third of the year.”

“You don’t have to be unpleasant,” says Wyatt.

Vik gets up and leaves. Behind him, he hears Yuri say quietly, “He doesn’t mean it.” 

* * *

Mezilo drops comments every other day about disloyalty-- probably he’s just furious that Tom, who’d seemed to be the perfectly loyal soldier, had gone AWOL. Vik curls his hands into fists at his sides during morning formations and scowls through his penalty hours.

“I wish he’d shut up,” he says, when they’re in Wyatt’s bunk with the security disabled. “I wish everyone would just shut up about Tom.”

“They don’t know he’s not missing on purpose,” says Wyatt. “And I mean, they do have a point. Tom does disappear a lot. And he isn’t very loyal.”

“I just hate it,” says Vik.

He plays video games against strangers on the Internet but none of them are as good as Tom. He gives up in disgust. Wyatt pats him on the arm.

“They’re just video games,” she says. “You should read a book.”

He snorts.

* * *

“What are those?” he says, nodding at Wyatt’s newest notepad, covered in equations.

“Algebra,” she says.

“You’re a lunatic,” he tells her. “It figures that Evil Wenches would do algebra for fun.”

Wyatt shrugs and smiles sort of sadly.

He realises the surveillance coding for Antarctica must have turned up nothing, and he feels suddenly like a jerk.

* * *

Yuri gets promoted to Upper that term. The ceremony is forty times more boring with Mezilo-- Vik had hated Marsh’s speeches on loyalty and honor but they had been far more tolerable than the monstrous monologue that Mezilo gives about authority and patriotism and the American Spirit.

 _I’m not even American_ , he thinks over their thought interface. _Half of the Spire isn’t even American._

 _That can’t be true,_ thinks Wyatt, but she frowns down the bench at him. _Can it? Karl’s American… Lyla’s American…_

Vik does not like to think about Lyla. They are not on speaking terms anymore, much less sexual activity terms. _Me, Yuri, Jenny Nguyen, Yosef Saide, Kelcy Demos, Makis--_

 _Perhaps we should be paying attention to the general,_ thinks Yuri.

Vik hazards a glance down the bench. _Nobody else is_ , he thinks back.

 _Vik is right for once,_ thinks Wyatt.

* * *

It is a solemn follow-up that night, as they sit on the edge of a fountain and Wyatt brushes her fingers through the water. They are not talking about Tom, but they are all thinking about him. As a compromise they are not talking at all.

“Curfew is in thirty minutes,” says Wyatt, finally.

 They walk back in silence.

* * *

Vik realises it almost in his sleep, that Blackburn is the ghost in the machine. It’s like a subconscious thought at first, an idle wondering.

But really there weren’t too many people who were as brilliant as Blackburn, as adept at programming, and as furious with the world. And Blackburn had the knowledge and the skills to do it-- had been researching Obsidian Corp. designs and methods for years. It’s a shock, really, that Vik _hadn’t_ figured it out by now.

He doesn’t know what to do with this knowledge. He considers telling Wyatt, but she knows Blackburn so well that she either already knows, or is willfully ignoring it. And he’s not about to tell her that Blackburn’s a mass murderer. He considers telling Yuri, but he’s not sure that he can trust Yuri’s moral code to agree with Blackburn’s decidedly immoral actions.

So he keeps it tucked close, tries not to think about it, and within a month he’s almost forgotten it.

Almost.

* * *

Summer is coming fast and Vik is dreading it. Somehow he feels like leaving his friends for a few weeks is the worst thing that can happen right now, even though he knows Wyatt and Yuri are far less likely to be kidnapped than Tom was.

“Email me back,” he tells them. “Every time I email you. There is nothing I will email you that is unimportant and does not require a response. Everything I think about is worthy of your time.”

He sends them a video of his dog and his little sister and they respond promptly.

It makes his stomach hurt.

* * *

His parents remark on his moodiness and he shrugs, makes up some excuse about being worried by current events. They accept his lie and discuss the ghost in the machine, which makes him feel worse.

“So many people dying,” says his mother in Hindi. “It’s disgusting.”

“Yeah,” says Vik.

“All of this over politics,” says his father. “Humanity is its own curse.”

Vik looks out the window over Delhi, at the tent cities he can see camped between brand new skyscrapers, gleaming and metallic. Decrepit billboards in English and Hindi and Farsi, bright moving screens on the sides of buildings. The stark contrasts between the desolate and the wealthy.

For the first time he realizes what Tom hates about the world.

* * *

“It would have been his birthday,” says Wyatt mournfully. “Over the holiday.”

They don’t talk about Tom all that much lately, since there’s never anything new to say. All they can do is worry and hope he’s alright, and it’s already impossible to do that in private.

“Yes,” agrees Yuri. “He is seventeen now.”

“I hope he had a good one,” says Vik, although they don’t even have proof that Tom is alive, much less that he is having a good birthday.

“I do too,” says Wyatt. 

* * *

“Just admit they don’t care about us,” snaps Vik, in Calisthenics. “They only want our processors to do their dirty work for them. Stop taking it personally what the companies want.”

“Why are you such a jerk?” complains Jenny Nguyen.

Vik scowls, climbing out of his exosuit. “I really wonder.”

She rolls her eyes in disgust and he flips her off to her back, until Blackburn clears his throat behind him. Vik turns around, halfheartedly trying to find a way to explain how unprofessional he’s being.

“Ashwan,” says Blackburn, “I know you’re frustrated.”

Vik is tempted to say something stupid like _oh do you_ but he’s not trying to get any penalty hours. He’s been free for a week and a half now and he wants to keep it that way.

Blackburn seems to sense that he’s not going to say anything; he sighs. “We’re still looking, Cadet. Get out of here.”

Vik turns, almost relieved to be dismissed, but he stops, a yard away. Suddenly he’s desperate for Blackburn to know what he’s realised, but terrified to tell him.

“You know the ghost in the machine,” he says, to Blackburn’s back. Blackburn stops walking, almost too calmly, and turns around. The ghost had struck that morning, had destroyed an entire Lexicon Mobile office building. Hundreds dead.

“Wherever he is,” Vik presses on, probably stupidly, “I hope he knows the ghost is still working.”

“Mr. Ashwan,” says Blackburn, and Vik suddenly wonders if he’s made a big, big mistake. “He wouldn’t be proud of that.”

“It’s not?” says Vik.

“No,” says Blackburn, thoughtfully. “This isn’t the ghost in the machine, anymore. This is a murderer.”

“It was already a murderer,” says Vik, confused.

Blackburn rubs his mouth. “Yes,” he agrees. “It was.”

Vik frowns.

“Go to lunch,” says Blackburn, and Vik goes to lunch.

* * *

One afternoon they have a short conversation about Tom-- Wyatt brings up the war games, probably just to revel in the memory of their abject defeat, and Vik complains about it.

The next morning they are called in to talk to Mezilo.

“We’ve been putting this off,” he says, “but you triggered some security algorithms yesterday and we should have had you in for questioning about this anyway.”

“Respectfully, sir,” says Vik, “I have no idea what you mean.”

And that is when they find out that Tom is considered a traitor, that just his name triggers security algorithms, and they are known to have been close friends with a deserter.

When they get back to Wyatt’s bunk Vik is seething, boiling inside.

He wants to be seething over the injustice of it all, really-- over how willing everyone is to write Tom off as a traitor and a quitter-- but he is more seething over how Tom had made it so easy to be written off as a traitor.

After all, Tom had laughed in Sigurdur Vitol’s face, had set cops on Hank Bloombury. It wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to say that he could have ditched the Spire.

“Why can’t Blackburn just tell them what he knows?”

Wyatt presses her lips together. “I don’t think he was keeping a close eye on Tom in a very legal way,” she says.

“He wouldn’t have to tell them that. I’m sure they wouldn’t even care.”

“They’d care,” says Wyatt.

Vik knows they would.

“We can’t even say his _name_ ,” he says. “His _name._  It’s so unfair.”

“You act like you’re the only one here who cared about him,” snaps Wyatt. “We know it’s unfair.”

“We should not be fighting,” says Yuri wearily.

Vik throws his hands up. “Fine. It’s fine anyway.”

He leaves them there.

* * *

They get promoted. Vik picks his name-- Asoka-- and his sponsor-- Wyndham Harks, who Tom always complained seemed to pick its combatants based on how pretty they were.

“Look at Heather,” Tom would say. “Look at Snowden.”

It’s been over a year since Tom dropped off the face of the earth and Vik is mourning.

“I know people go missing for years,” he says. “But I never really-- I figured we’d have found _something_ by now.”

“I know,” says Wyatt.

“I mean, we’re all _Combatants_ without him,” says Vik. He’s angry at the idea. “We’re here getting our promotions and all that and we have _no idea_ if he’s even _alive_.”

“He is alive,” says Yuri, sharply enough that Vik almost snaps out of it, just out of shock. “He is alive and well and we will see him again.”  
  
“How can you believe that?” says Vik.

There’s a long pause and Wyatt sighs.

“I must,” says Yuri.

Vik knows that he should agree-- he has to believe that Tom is okay too-- but they haven’t heard a thing in a whole year. They can’t even say his name anymore. It’s a horrible realization, that he’s not entirely sure he still believes in it.

“You’re right,” he tells Yuri, and he lies in bed in his new, CamCo dorm that night, staring at the ceiling and unwilling to plug in for the night. He can’t tell himself with any sincerity that he thinks Tom is still alive. He can’t even convince himself to have any hope.

* * *

The war has started to grind to a stop; nobody seems too interested in new battles. Vik fights in a few of them but they’re uninteresting and Medusa wipes them out quickly.

They don’t leave the Spire much anymore. At first it was just disconcerting-- the quiet outside, as people lived their respective lives-- and then Vik started to piece together _why_.

There were no horns. No screeching tires. Just perfect, orderly traffic, and perfect, orderly citizens. Nobody panhandling, nobody sprinting through the streets in the mornings. No drunken disorderly behavior, no horribly parked cars. Even the police officers, the few human ones that remained, seemed sluggish and bored.

“There’s something wrong with the world,” he tells Wyatt and Yuri.

“Obsidian Corp’s gotten new neural processors to the general public,” says Wyatt. “They can’t break the law. Literally.”

“Oh,” says Vik. “We’re straight out of a dystopian science fiction, aren’t we?”

"It’s not funny,” says Wyatt.

Vik stares out the window at the traffic, perfect, robotic. “It wasn't a joke,” he says.

* * *

Even though they disable security in Wyatt’s bunk, they can’t get around the search algorithms that are still hunting for Tom’s name, and now for mentions of a ghost in the machine.

Luckily, Vik is fond of nicknames.

“If the Cretin is Batman,” he says, “and Casper was just someone else working under Batman’s name, I think there’s someone else working under the other Batman’s name.”

“I don’t understand,” says Wyatt.

“Casper the friendly G-H-I won’t finish spelling it,” he says. They have no way of knowing what the security algorithms will pick up and they don't want to risk it. “That’s the new nickname.”

“He’s killed hundreds of people, he’s not friendly,” says Wyatt.

“That’s not the point. Do you know who it is?”

Wyatt gives him a weird look and he takes it as a yes. “I figured,” he says. “You know him way better than I do.”

“I too have guessed at it,” says Yuri.

“I don’t think our friendly friend is responsible for the Lexicon office,” says Vik. “Or for the Roache nephews murders. Or for a bunch of other things.”

“Why not?” says Wyatt.

“It’s like in Spiderman,” says Vik. “He’s a _vigilante_ , not a terrorist. He only killed actually evil people. Our Casper imposter-- he’s acting outside of that rule. He’s slaughtering regular men and women who just work for the corporations.”

“So there are three now,” says Wyatt.

“Yeah, which leads me to the next phase of nicknames,” says Vik. “If we already know who Christmas past and present are, who’s Christmas future?”

“This is a confusing analogy,” says Yuri.

* * *

There is nothing to do anymore but to read mindless internet articles. Vik is in the seventh page of a gallery of TV shows every 2050s child should know when he hears a clamor.

He leaves his bunk and finds Blackburn barreling toward the window.

“Sir!” he says, confused, and then the door bangs open again.

Blackburn regards the drone with a cold calm; Vik, by contrast, is freaking out.

“Back, Ashwan!” says Blackburn, and Vik obliges almost instinctively, scrambling out of the way as Centurions appear in the window and blast it in. The drone in the doorway goes down in a sparking, smoking mess and Vik barely notices when Blackburn throws himself out of the window. He runs and sees the other Centurion catch him, start to zip away.

He makes an undignified sound as the door bangs open again.

He sees her for the first time, her profile flickering into his head. The NSA agent, the one that had been working with Tom and Wyatt. Frayne.

She’s dead in an instant, her head spinning off her body, and Vik backs up until he hits the wall.

“Man,” he says, as the drones fight. As the one that had killed Frayne is destroyed.

“Oh man,” he says, almost hysterically, looking around the wreckage of the common room.

* * *

In her dorm, Wyatt hands them a notepad.

This must look suspicious, of course, but there are security algorithms over everything now and they can’t trust themselves to speak. Vik glances at the notepad.

_They found Tom._

“They?” he says.

Wyatt takes the pad back to write on it. _Blackburn._

“He’s alive?” says Vik.

“Where are they?” says Yuri.

_He didn’t say. He encrypted the conversation but he didn’t trust it._

“Oh,” says Vik.

He’d given up months ago on ever seeing Tom again. “Can we see him?” asks Yuri.

Wyatt shakes her head. “He didn’t say.”

A tide of emotion pulls out of Vik, like it’s withdrawing. Pulling far far away. He can’t even think.

* * *

It’s a few weeks. The CamCos and cadets all have scutwork reassigned to clear out the damage that Blackburn’s escape had done. Vik stares at the wall, where they’ve painted over Frayne’s blood.

He’d seen her head sliced off her body. Just like that. It’s unreal.

* * *

_He’s alive but traumatized_ , Blackburn wrote. _I locked Vengerov out of his processor years ago, and Vengerov worked around it by manipulating and psychologically torturing him. He will need extensive therapy if we don’t all die within the year._

“That was cheerful,” says Vik.

“He’s okay!” says Wyatt, who looks more cheerful than she has in a year.

“He’s traumatized and needs extensive therapy,” Vik points out.

Wyatt grabs Yuri and kisses him hard on the lips. “He’s _alive!_ He’s _safe_!”

Yuri spins her in a circle.

Vik should be happy. He should be. But he’s more sour, more upset than ever. He’d given up on Tom-- he’d given up everything and he’s miserable now.

* * *

Wyatt and Yuri act bizarre the next day at lunch, when Vik is trying to sulk in peace. Giving each other secretive grins.

“I am happy to see you feeling well,” says Yuri.

“Yeah, I’m better,” mutters Vik. “Indigestion’s gone.”

It had been a miserable week that he'd been unable to eat anything and keep it down. That image-- Frayne's head spinning off her body-- somehow even after dozens and dozens of war sims and movies he can't get past it.

He eats quickly and heads back to the elevator, suddenly exhausted and desperate to check out what mindless internet distractions there are available today. Yuri spins in a circle, beaming behind him.

“What are you doing, man?” says Vik.

Yuri looks away. “Dancing.”

"Stop,” says Vik, suddenly annoyed at it. Yuri can be so stupidly happy sometimes and it drives him mad. He heads to the bathroom to wash his hands and comes back, when his blankets sit up.

Vik makes an undignified sound and grabs the blanket; something brushes through his hair.

“T--” says Vik, before he remembers. “Oh.”

It’s like the tsunami of frustration and fury from the entirety of last year-- throwing his shoes and punching Clint and snapping at Wyatt and fighting with Lyla-- but stronger. A monstrous tide of hope and delirious joy that he instinctively tries to quell. “Doctor?”

When Tom reappears, the wave breaks over Vik with the force of months and months of worry, furious and crushing and glorious.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Ella and Hope (the main reasons I wrote this) and hopefully I can get out another Insignia fic eventually!


End file.
